Tahiti court of appeal throws out OPT case

Transcript

A long-running major court case in French Polynesia involving the territory's former president Gaston Flosse has come to a sudden halt.

After the suspects had been held in jail for weeks and confessions had painted a detailed picture of the corrupt deals, the so-called OPT affair collapsed.

The prosecution had tripped up over technicalities in the court of appeal in Tahiti before the substance of the case could be considered.

After this setback, the prosecution last week decided to let the case go.

The accused have hailed the outcome as a victory for justice, but critics disagree and question the judicial process altogether.

Walter Zweifel reports.

GASTON FLOSSE: It's a just decision, a decision of the justice, it was judged..it was judged.

Gaston Flosse was all smiles in front of the television cameras in court, simply repeating that a ruling had been made. This after the appeal court had just decided to uphold the objections by the defence that the process was flawed. This quashed the five-year jail sentences given to the two main accused last year, and above all, it revived Flosse's hopes to be able to run for office again in three years. Alex du Prel, who is the publisher of the Tahiti Pacifique magazine, says a basic procedural matter stopped the case.

ALEX DU PREL: When the instruction judge asked Flosse to come to be heard, the judge did not tell him why he was calling him and on what case, and just on this factor, the whole thing has collapsed.

Flosse's party issued a statement to note that the judiciary has applied its decision based on the law and therefore has come out with an enhanced stature. His lawyer Francis Szpiner explained on television that he regretted so much energy was expended for a predictable outcome because after all, the prosecution's approach made no sense. An observer in court was Rene Hoffer, who has a history of probing decisions, laws and regulations for their inconsistencies. He says the lawyers' performance was like art.

RENE HOFFER: It was a beautiful, a beautiful show of the lawyers - the rest, they didn't know what to do. They tried to defend the indefensible.

The court ruling killed a case that dated back to the 1990s when a French advertising executive, Hubert Haddad, began paying kickbacks to Flosse in order to get public sector contracts with the OPT telecommunications company. Mr Haddad spent several months in jail as part of the investigation and Flosse lost his immunity as French Senator in 2009 and also ended up in jail for a few weeks as part of the probe. Alex du Prel says their testimony was clear.

ALEX DU PREL:Flosse admitted he got the money, his secretary admitted she was delivering the money, Hubert Haddad admitted, yes, he collected about five million US dollars.     

Mr Haddad's employee in Tahiti handed the cash regularly to Flosse's personal secretary who in turn disbursed some of it as alimony to several of Flosse's former mistresses. There has been a largely muted response in Tahiti to the way the case came to end. For the former head of the Human Rights League, widely known as Mathius, this was masterminded from behind the scenes although there is no proof. He wrote:

MATHIUS: Here is a stunning display of how justice is not independent. You will never get me to believe that these errors were not made on purpose.

Rene Hoffer says the prosecution was advised it was on the right track.

RENE HOFFER:That case was approved by the Supreme Court in Paris, by parquet general de la cour de cassation, who had said, yes, that procedure is then right one.

Alex du Prel says there have been instances in the past where complaints have been accepted but the cases then collapsed because of procedural errors. And, he says, prosecutors are political appointees.    

ALEX DU PREL: We had one procureur, on state attorney, who arrived in Tahiti - I published it, I had two confirmations, one from the head of the gendarmerie and one from the head of the appeals court - where when he arrived he said 'they nominated me here to protect Gaston Flosse and I will make sure that nothing happens to him'.

Rene Hoffer says trials involving Flosse have the air of a show.

RENE HOFFER:It's all political, it's all twisted, freemasonry. Inside the tribunal, they are pro Flosse, against Flosse, pro Hollande, pro Sarkozy Nagy de Bocsa etc. etc. It's really like a play.

For a local author, Simone Grand, the latest case is a farce being played out on many levels. She wrote:

SIMONE GRAND: What a magnificent display of cynicism and of a victory of a ruse. Not only is he pleased to have impoverished his country by misspending huge sums where I seem to have heard the accused admitted he had to pay for the needs of his exes, it's also the public purse paying for his lawyers because he had a law passed that guaranteed legal costs linked to his time has president are covered by the territory.

In a written statement, the French Polynesian presidency has denied that the public purse will have to cover Flosse's legal costs. But Alex du Prel says the government in Tahiti has brought in the French law.

ALEX DU PREL: Any president of French Polynesia, or France, who has legal problems with acts that have a relation with his office it is the territory, in the case of French Polynesia, has to provide material and legal means to defend him.

So what will happen next? Rene Hoffer again:

RENE HOFFER: Technically, it will go back to Philippe Stelmach, who was at the very beginning investigating the case and then it will start again.

But Alex du Prel doubts that.

ALEX DU PREL: The lawyers are going to say 'look, this is all prescribed.' The first case collapsed, it was declared null and then if you haven't had something on an other way within three years, the whole thing collapses.  

Whatever happens next, Flosse has for the time being fended off the risk of being declared ineligible to stand in the 2018 elections. And by that his legal team this month achieved what it was paid for.